222 A Short History of the Middle East
to Jews and Arabs, and in the absence of a settlement must plan
for the early withdrawal of the British forces and administration
from Palestine. On 2 October the chairman of the American
section of the Jewish Agency told the U.N. General Assembly,
'Should British forces not be available, the Jewish people of
Palestine would provide without delay the necessary effectives to
maintain public security'. On 29 November the Assembly
approved the partition plan with minor amendments, though
the necessary two-thirds majority was obtained only by some
remarkable lobbying, which at the last moment swung eight
doubtful votes into the partition lobby. The Times correspondent
commented: 'The general feeling among the delegates was that,
regardless of its merits and demerits and the joint support given
by the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., the partition scheme would
have been carried in no other city than New York. . . . The
strength of the Jewish influence in Washington has been a revel-
ation/1 Immediately guerilla warfare broke out in Palestine: 'The
Arabs were determined to show that they would not submit
tamely to the U.N. plan of partition, while the Jews tried to
consolidate the advantages gained at the General Assembly by a
succession of drastic operations designed to intimidate and cure
the Arabs of any desire for further conflict.'2 In January 1948 the
British Government resisted Zionist claims for recognition of their
armed forces and the right to import arms before the ending of the
Mandate on 15 May. After the problem of executing the partition
scheme had been referred to the Security Council, the United
States on 19 March admitted that it could not be carried out peace-
fully, and proposed instead that Palestine should be placed under
temporary United Nations trusteeship. The Security Council's
appeal for a truce between Arabs and Jews served once again to
protract the discussion without reaching any decision. Meanwhile,
as the British troops were withdrawn the Zionists, by a vigorous
counter-offensive, had by the end of April achieved complete
military superiority over the Palestine Arab 'Liberation Army* in
the plains. On the afternoon of 14 May the Jewish state of Israel
was proclaimed,3 and was immediately recognized by the United
11 December 1947.
2 Sir Alexander Cadogan to the U.N, Palestine Commission, 21 January 1948.
3 The termination of the mandate at midnight was anticipated because the
Sabbath began at sunset on 14 May.